Gardner out for the game? Not starting the last quarter. Walking the boundary.
Ump pays a ridiculously soft marking contest free to get it into their fifty.
10-26
Caruso hurt too (ankle???). But gets up.
Cranston sets up another set shot. It falls over the line, just.
10-32
Stepnell goals!
It bounced slow, then fast, and the Cat couldn’t reach it.
16-32
It was well kicked by Stepnell to roll onwards but landing at the wrong point of the rotation initially gave the Cat a mistaken hope she could get to it.
This ump has been paid off. Blatant dropping the ball two metres from him, didn’t see it.
It goes down to their forward line and they snap the goal.
17-38
Fark me. Deadset cheats.
Another fifty for protected area while in touching distance of their opponent.
They hit the post from close in.
17-39
Finning back on the field.
Another “interesting” call as Geelong take us on and are caught.
They drop it thirty out from our goal. This is getting ridiculous.
Wind stopped at the break and never restarted.
Bronx cheer as we get a free.
Unrelated, Finning copped another knock to the head.
Stepnell not paid an obvious fifty sixty out (the woman on the mark rushed her before the ump called ‘play on’). It goes straight to their end, they run into goal and… Caruso applied the pressure to force it out of bounds.
Gets lots of applause for the chase.
Siren.
2.4.16 loses to 5.9.39
The wind starts again. GTFO.
Now to see if I’m walking home.
Thanks for reporting DJR
The good news is the keys are in the car.
The bad news is I am not.
That was an expensive loss.
Bad Karma day?
So to start with: that was the best team we’ve played against this year, comfortably. They were slightly better than us in the midfield, but our defence rebounded them almost all of the time. “Almost all of the times” with that many incursions wasn’t enough, though.
In the end you can basically say AFLW-listed Cranston was the difference, kicking two goals and setting up at least one more. Morcom barely ever gets beaten, and she got spanked at times today. Their other forward picket, Stephanie Williams, was also hard to control – we were just lucky she kept failing to covert her shots at goal.
The marking ability of the Geelong team as a whole was really good.
It was a tricky day with a variable direction and gusty wind (until the last quarter when the bastard just stopped).
The umps were good in the first half, though extremely reluctant to pay good tackles and bad throws. In the second half they played a decent part in breaking Geelong free, or giving Geelong respite under pressure. The two fifties for intruding on protected space were criminal, as in both cases we were in touching distance of the Cat who chose to run through the area. The crowd was distinctly annoyed by the end of the game.
I’m not going to find many of our players to point out as successful, but I will say the pressure the team applied for the whole game was excellent.
Nanscawen and Ugle were ferocious at the contest and gained many disposals. Mackay on the wing also.
Gardner dropped a few marks you’d expect her to take, but was otherwise good until she was forced from the ground in the second half. At that stage we were likely glad we had Ahrens as a replacement key defender: she played mid the first half to very little effect, and CHB in the second half satisfactorily (she was demoted to defence before Gardner went off).
We had a lot of other injury scares, including a couple for Jemma Finning. She otherwise had a decent debut and showed she was a tough competitor. It was interesting she spent part of the game as an isolated full forward.
Nalder had one of her better games around the ground today; probably her best for the year. Barba played midfield all day, despite the absence of Frew (I guess we calculated that it was pointless to put her forward if the ball would never get there…)
I’ll give some credit to Marianna Anthony and Mia-Rae Clifford today. Marianna was everywhere, and given the way we were being sucked up the ground, Clifford very often was given the task of scrambling against two Cats to hold the ball up until help got back.
Finally, I apologise for not getting a decent photo of Dicker’s hair. The precision with which the black and blonde halves met in the middle was awesome.
Casey play Willy tonight and will likely move past us on the ladder. The Saints may also have locked in finals by easily beating the disintegrating Port Melbourne.
OK, I’m outta here. Pretty sweet card at the Thornbury Theatre tonight.